Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin (Kremlin, slang. Kremlin (from the English "Kremlin") ) (Old Russian *krom*; Gorod, town, or fortress) — a 17th-century stone fortress in Historic Center Nizhny Novgorod. Architectural Monument of Federal Significance of federal significance, one of the "Wonders of Russia".
In 2015, Nizhny Novgorod residents are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

The Essence of the Phenomenon

The Kremlin complex houses the main institutions of state and municipal government. It is the place of work (but not the residence) of the rulers Residents of Nizhny Novgorod Region.

In ancient times—a fortified place where people took refuge Authority.

History

The first attempt to replace the wooden fortress with a stone Kremlin dates back to 1374, during the era of the Grand Duchy of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal (1341–1392). At that time, Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich laid the foundation for the Kremlin, but construction was limited to just one tower, known as the Dmitriev Tower, which has not survived to this day (the current tower was built later).

Under Ivan III, Nizhny Novgorod served as a garrison town, maintaining a permanent garrison and serving as a military assembly point during Moscow’s campaigns against Kazan. To strengthen the city’s defenses, work on the fortress walls resumed. Construction of the stone Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin began in 1500 with the building of the Ivanovskaya Tower in the riverside part of the city, but the main work began in 1508, and within a short time—by 1515—this grand construction project was completed. The main construction work on the Kremlin was carried out under the direction of Pietro Francesco (Pyotr Fryazin), an architect sent from Moscow. The destruction of the old defensive structures—the oak walls—was accelerated by a massive fire in 1513.

The two-kilometer-long wall was reinforced by 13 towers (one of them—the Zachatskaya Tower—located on the banks of the Volga, has not survived). The “Stone City” had a permanent garrison and substantial artillery. The new Volga fortress was built by the Muscovite state as a key stronghold against the Kazan Khanate, and in the course of its military service, it withstood numerous sieges and assaults. And not once during all that time was the enemy able to capture it.

With the fall of Kazan, the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin lost its military significance, and subsequently housed the administrative bodies of the city, the Nizhny Novgorod Principality, and the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.

On January 30, 1949, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR issued an order regarding the restoration of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

Legends

One of the legends associated with the name of one of the towers—Koromyslovaya—is particularly noteworthy. In 1520, the Astrakhan Tatars, led by Sain Girey, laid siege to the city. The Tatars attempted to seize the Kremlin by trickery and crept up to its walls at night. Early in the morning, a woman from Nizhny Novgorod went to fetch water. Upon seeing the Tatars, she engaged them in an unequal battle and struck down 10 of them with a yoke until one of them managed to kill her with a saber blow. The Tatars paused to reflect: what kind of warriors must there be here, if even their young women are so brave? And they quietly withdrew from the walls of Nizhny Novgorod. The historical accuracy of such a legend seems doubtful.

According to another legend, construction of the Kremlin began with this very tower. To strengthen the structure, it was customary to bury the first living creature to arrive at the site in the tower’s foundation. A young woman carrying buckets on a yoke came by as she was on her way to fetch water from the Pochaina River. She was buried there along with her buckets and the yoke. However, this fundamentally contradicts Christian traditions and tenets, and is more likely a retelling of ancient pagan legends.

The Kremlin Towers

To date, 12 of the Kremlin's 13 towers have survived.

  • St. George’s Tower—named after the nearby St. George’s Church in the Posad. A square, four-tiered tower that, until the 17th century, featured a drawbridge.
  • The Boris and Gleb Tower—named after the church dedicated to Saints Boris and Gleb, which stood below the Kremlin on the banks of the Volga. By 1622, it had been rebuilt. As a result of constant ground shifts, the tower collapsed and was finally dismantled in 1785. In 1966, the remains of the Boris and Gleb Tower were unearthed, and in 1972, the tower was rebuilt on its original site.
  • The Zachatsevskaya (Zachatskaya) Tower (destroyed by a landslide in the 18th century) — named after the nearby Zachatsevsky Monastery. It is sometimes referred to as the Zhivonosnovskaya Tower (after the church and monastery dedicated to the Life-Giving Spring) or the White Tower (by analogy with the neighboring tower). It was a two-story square tower with a gate.
  • The White Tower—named for the white stone cladding on the lower part of its exterior facade. Its later name from the 17th–18th centuries was Simeonovskaya, after the Simeonov Monastery located next to it inside the Kremlin. It is a round, four-tiered tower.
  • The Ivanovskaya Tower—next to the Church of St. John the Baptist in Posad.
  • The Clock Tower—named for the clock installed on it in the 16th century.
  • The North Tower—due to its northern location relative to the other Kremlin towers—was also known as the Ilyinskaya Tower because it stood opposite the Church of St. Elijah the Prophet in Zapochaine.
  • The Taynitskaya Tower — through a “secret passage” in the wall near it, leading to the river Pochayna. It was also known as Mironositskaya—after the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women on the other side of the Pochaina Ravine—and as Na Zelen—in the ravine below the tower there was a “herbal yard,” a gunpowder factory with a watermill.
  • The Koromyslova Tower—named after the legendary girl with a rocker who is said to be buried beneath it.
  • The Nikolskaya Tower is located next to the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Posad. A pedestrian bridge over the Zelensky Descent, built in the 1980s, leads to the tower.
  • The Storage Tower served as a warehouse. It was also known as the Zeichhaus Tower (Zeichhaus is the German word for a military warehouse) and the Alekseevskaya Tower—the Alekseevskaya Church was located nearby.
  • The Dmitrovskaya (Dmitriev) Tower is named after Grand Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod. According to another account, the name is associated with the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, built by Prince Dmitriev in front of the tower in 1378.[5] First mentioned in 1372–1374, it is considered the oldest tower, but it acquired its modern appearance in 1895 when it was converted into the Khudozhestvennyy Museum (it currently houses an exhibition hall). It bears the city’s coat of arms and a gate icon of the city’s canonized founder, Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich.
  • The Powder Tower—was used to store gunpowder and other ammunition. Later names included Spasskaya (located next to Spassky Cathedral) and Streletskaya (near the Streltsy settlement). A round, four-story tower. There are no front embrasures on the lower stories, meaning the tower served as a caponier for firing along the base of the adjacent fortress walls. The middle section has three windows, while the upper section has three battlements and 11 embrasures.

Attractions

The following are located in the Kremlin:

  • arbitration court (regional/district)
  • Khudozhestvennyy Museum
  • Military Prosecutor's Office
  • Philharmonic
  • military court
  • Representative Office
  • Arsenal Contemporary Art Exhibition
  • Main Civil Registry Office
  • Governor and the regional government
  • mail
  • City Council/City Administration
  • Kladovaya Bashnya Café
  • Gusarskaya Ballad Café
  • the café in the Dmitrievskaya Tower
  • Guardhouse
  • Lottery Tickets for Foreigners
  • the only restroom in the center
  • St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral
  • City Administration's Canteen
  • eternal flame
  • flower show
  • tank exhibition
  • Minin's Stele
  • Alley of Love
  • source

Ranking Position

Miracle number two on the list of Miracles Volga Federal District

« The Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin ranks second on the list of the "Wonders of the World" in the Volga Federal District

(NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Maria Kulagina) The Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin ranks second on the list of the "Wonders of the World" in the Volga Federal District. This information is reported on the official website of the "Seven Wonders of Russia" contest.

As of February 15, the Kungur Ice Cave ranks first among the “wonders” of the Volga Federal District—a unique natural monument of the Urals shrouded in numerous legends. According to one of these legends, Ermak’s detachment spent the winter in the vicinity of the cave in 1578–1579. More than 10,700 people voted for the Kungur Ice Cave.

As a reminder, the nominees for the title of “Wonder of the World in the Volga Federal District” from the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast also include the Pechersky Monastery (3,264 votes), the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God (1,479 votes), and the complex Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka, the Volga Otkos, and the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.
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The Origin of the Word "Kremlin"

The word “Kremlin” first appears in the chronicles under the year 1317 as “Kremnik.” There are several theories about its origin.

  • The word “Kremlin” is thought to be derived from the Greek word “kremenos,” which means “a steep slope or a steep mountain overlooking a shore or ravine.”
  • Another theory links the origin of the word “Kremlin” to the words “kremnik,” meaning “fortress within a city,” and “kromstvo,” meaning “interior.”
  • In his *Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language*, Vladimir Dal provided a number of distinctive thematic parallels drawn from dialectal vocabulary: “kremlevnik” — “a coniferous forest on a mossy bog,” “krem” — “the best part of a nature reserve, strong and large timber,” “kremlevoe derevo” — “a tree at the edge of the forest, growing alone in an open space, a strong timber tree.” Historians I. E. Zabelin and M. N. Tikhomirov believed that the words “Kremlin,” “kremnik,” and “krom” are related to the fact that Old Russian fortresses were wooden log fortifications.

Interesting Facts

  • During the Great Patriotic War, the roofs of the Taynitskaya, Severnaya, and Chasovaya towers were dismantled, and anti-aircraft machine guns were installed on their upper platforms.
  • The Main Legend of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin states...that somewhere deep within its casemates and passageways lies the legendary library of Ivan Groznyy, brought from Byzantium by the tsar’s grandmother, Sophia Palaiologina. To this day, this mystery remains unsolved—due to the complex terrain and the proximity of groundwater, the Kremlin has been very little explored.
  • Under the Governor Nemtsov A monument to St. George has been erected in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin with the inscription "Nizhny—Moscow’s closest neighbor".

See also

Links